February 2021: Highly Anticipated New Releases

Hey there! February is upon us, and I am beyond excited for some of these upcoming releases! Which ones are you most anticipating?

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Feb. 2nd: Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

Page Length: 352

Publisher: Holiday House

Synopsis: Coming of age as a Fat brown girl in a white Connecticut suburb is hard.
Harder when your whole life is on fire, though.

Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.

People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it’s hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn’t help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter.

But there’s one person who’s always in Charlie’s corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing–he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? UGHHH. Everything is now officially a MESS.

A sensitive, funny, and painful coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.

LINKS:     Goodreads    |       Amazon     |     Book Depository

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Feb. 2nd: Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

Page Length: 368

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Synopsis: Finlay Donovan is killing it . . . except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in chaos: the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.

When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet . . . Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.

Fast-paced, deliciously witty, and wholeheartedly authentic in depicting the frustrations and triumphs of motherhood in all its messiness, hilarity, and heartfelt moments, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the first in a brilliant new series from award-winning author Elle Cosimano.

LINKS:     Goodreads     |      Amazon   | Book Depository

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Feb. 8th: Dare to Be a Duchess by Sapna Bhog

Page Length: 150

Publication Date: Feb. 8, 2021

Publisher: Entangled

Synopsis: He’s a powerful duke. She’s his uncle’s ward. They have forever been at war, until one night, one masquerade, and one kiss…

Lara Ramsay is no stranger to scandal. As the orphaned daughter of a British colonel and his beloved Indian wife, whispers follow her everywhere. Not even the protection of the formidable Duke of Wolverton, a man she can’t stand, keeps the gossips at bay.

The audacious Lara has driven Tristan Wentworth, The Duke of Wolverton, to distraction since the day his uncle took her in—and he’s quite certain doing so is her favorite pastime. After catching her and his younger sister at a salacious masquerade, he’s had enough scandal and issues a marriage ultimatum: find a husband within six months or one will be chosen for her.

Unfortunately, no one in the ton appeals to her. Except, perhaps, the duke himself. The battle of wills has only just begun, and when Lara kisses him, their fate is sealed.

Sometimes even the most proper duke needs to break the rules to win the heart of the woman he loves…

LINKS:     Goodreads     |      Amazon    

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Feb. 9th: The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

Series: Deathless – Book 1

Page Length: 432

Publisher: Delacorte

Synopsis: The start of a bold and immersive West African-inspired, feminist fantasy series for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and Black Panther. In this world, girls are outcasts by blood and warriors by choice.

Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.

But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity–and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.

Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki–near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire’s greatest threat.

Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she’s ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be–not even Deka herself.

LINKS:     Goodreads    |       Amazon      |   Book Depository

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Feb. 9th: The Iron Raven by Julie Kagawa

Series: The Iron Fey: Evenfall #1

Page Length: 336

Publisher: Inkyard Press

Synopsis: Robin Goodfellow. Puck. Prankster, joker, raven, fool… King Oberon’s right-hand jester from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The legends are many, but the truth will now be known as never before, as Puck finally tells his own story and faces a threat to the lands of Faery and the human world unlike any before.

With the Iron Queen Meghan Chase and her prince consort, Puck’s longtime rival Ash, and allies old and new by his side, Puck begins a fantastical and dangerous adventure not to be missed or forgotten.

LINKS:     Goodreads   |      Amazon      |    Book Depository

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Feb. 9th: Hit Me With Your Scot by Suzanne Enoch

Series: Wild Wicked Highlanders (Book 3)

Page Length: 336

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Synopsis: The MacTaggert brothers have one task: Find English brides or lose their land!

Coll MacTaggert, Viscount Glendarril, is a big, brawny Highlander who doesn’t like being told what to do—not even by his exasperated English mother who is determined to see her eldest son wedded and bedded. However, when he comes to the rescue of an irresistibly beautiful woman, Coll discovers that he may have found his perfect match…

The challenge isn’t that Persephone Jones is famous, wealthy, independent, and smarter than anyone he knows. The problem is that she is not interested in marrying any man—especially not a hot-headed Scot—even if he is the only man who seems to understand who she really is even when she’s not sure herself. When Coll learns that Persephone is actually a lady-in-hiding and someone is willing to kill her for what she stands to inherit…Well, Coll has never been one to turn down a fight. When hearts are involved, nothing comes between a Highlander and his lady.

LINKS:     Goodreads     |      Amazon     |     Book Depository

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Feb. 9th: The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

Page Length: 368

Publisher: Ace Books

Synopsis: When a banished witch falls in love with the legendary trickster Loki, she risks the wrath of the gods in this moving, subversive debut novel that reimagines Norse mythology.

Angrboda’s story begins where most witches’ tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love.

Their union produces three unusual children, each with a secret destiny, who Angrboda is keen to raise at the edge of the world, safely hidden from Odin’s all-seeing eye. But as Angrboda slowly recovers her prophetic powers, she learns that her blissful life—and possibly all of existence—is in danger.

With help from the fierce huntress Skadi, with whom she shares a growing bond, Angrboda must choose whether she’ll accept the fate that she’s foreseen for her beloved family…or rise to remake their future. From the most ancient of tales this novel forges a story of love, loss, and hope for the modern age.

LINKS:     Goodreads     |      Amazon     |     Book Depository

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Feb. 9th: Dancing With Danger by Kerrigan Byrne

Series: Goode Girls – Book 3

Publisher: Gnarly Wool Publishing

Synopsis: Mercy Goode, is only truly good at one thing: finding mischief wherever she goes. Such as getting arrested at a murder scene with Raphael Sauvageau, a brutally handsome, ruthless smuggler with a dangerous past and a dubious future. The silver-tongued devil doesn’t deserve a lick of her confidence, but she has evidence that he’s not the killer.

But she can’t deny that he’s relentlessly wicked.

Raphael has no time for obsession. He’s an empire to run, a murder to avenge, and a plan to save his brother that is likely a suicide mission. But this clever, infuriating bluestocking who insists she’s an amateur sleuth keeps showing up where she doesn’t belong. And for some bloody reason they can’t seem to be in the same room without him yanking her into his arms and kissing her until they’re both breathless.

Power, prestige, and a staggering fortune hasn’t filled the abysmal void where Raphael’s heart should be… Perhaps what he needs is a night with her. Perhaps what he needs is redemption. Perhaps what he needs is a bit of Mercy.

LINKS:     Goodreads     |      Amazon    |      Book Depository

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Feb. 16th: A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses – Book 4

Page Length: 648

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Synopsis: Nesta Archeron has always been prickly-proud, swift to anger, and slow to forgive. And ever since being forced into the Cauldron and becoming High Fae against her will, she’s struggled to find a place for herself within the strange, deadly world she inhabits. Worse, she can’t seem to move past the horrors of the war with Hybern and all she lost in it.

The one person who ignites her temper more than any other is Cassian, the battle-scarred warrior whose position in Rhysand and Feyre’s Night Court keeps him constantly in Nesta’s orbit. But her temper isn’t the only thing Cassian ignites. The fire between them is undeniable, and only burns hotter as they are forced into close quarters with each other.

Meanwhile, the treacherous human queens who returned to the Continent during the last war have forged a dangerous new alliance, threatening the fragile peace that has settled over the realms. And the key to halting them might very well rely on Cassian and Nesta facing their haunting pasts.

Against the sweeping backdrop of a world seared by war and plagued with uncertainty, Nesta and Cassian battle monsters from within and without as they search for acceptance-and healing-in each other’s arms.

LINKS:     Goodreads     |      Amazon     |     Book Depository

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Feb. 23rd: The Things We Leave Unfinished by Rebecca Yarros

Page Length: 400

Publisher: Entangled: Amara

Synopsis: Told in alternating timelines, THE THINGS WE LEAVE UNFINISHED examines the risks we take for love, the scars too deep to heal, and the endings we can’t bring ourselves to see coming.

Twenty-eight-year-old Georgia Stanton needs to start over. Having survived a brutal and very public divorce, she’s back in her tiny hometown of Poplar Grove, Colorado, hoping to find her footing. She may have been raised by one of the greatest romance writers of the twentieth century, Scarlett Stanton, but she knows love in the real world is nothing like her late great-grandmother’s novels.

Noah Harrison has been given the opportunity of a lifetime: complete the last unpublished manuscript written by his favorite author. The only caveat? Her fiery, beautiful great-granddaughter has to agree with him…and she doesn’t. Not that he’s qualified as a huge bestseller in his own right, and especially not that a happily-ever-after is the right way to end Scarlett’s story. With his publisher’s deadline breathing down his neck, Noah sets off for Colorado to try to convince her.

The deeper Georgia and Noah delve into Scarlett’s passionate, World War II romance with American fighter pilot Jameson Stanton—and the letters they left behind—the harder they’ll have to fight their own undeniable attraction. But there’s a reason Scarlett could never bring herself to finish the manuscript, and discovering the truth will bring them into a love story spanning two lifetimes: a journey of danger and sacrifice, loyalty and secrets, tragedy and, ultimately, the healing power of love.

LINKS:     Goodreads     |      Amazon    |      Book Depository

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Feb. 23rd: Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

Page Length: 304

Publisher: Park Row

Synopsis: With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She’s a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.

This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.

In New York, she’s able to ignore all the annoying questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.

LINKS:     Goodreads    |       Amazon     |     Book Depository

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Feb. 23rd: A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth

Series: A Dark and Hollow Star – Book 1

Page Length: 512

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Synopsis: The Cruel Prince meets City of Bones in this thrilling urban fantasy set in the magical underworld of Toronto that follows a queer cast of characters racing to stop a serial killer whose crimes could expose the hidden world of faeries to humans.

Choose your player.

The “ironborn” half-fae outcast of her royal fae family.
A tempestuous Fury, exiled to earth from the Immortal Realm and hellbent on revenge.
A dutiful fae prince, determined to earn his place on the throne.
The prince’s brooding guardian, burdened with a terrible secret.

For centuries, the Eight Courts of Folk have lived among us, concealed by magic and bound by law to do no harm to humans. This arrangement has long kept peace in the Courts—until a series of gruesome and ritualistic murders rocks the city of Toronto and threatens to expose faeries to the human world.

Four queer teens, each who hold a key piece of the truth behind these murders, must form a tenuous alliance in their effort to track down the mysterious killer behind these crimes. If they fail, they risk the destruction of the faerie and human worlds alike. If that’s not bad enough, there’s a war brewing between the Mortal and Immortal Realms, and one of these teens is destined to tip the scales. The only question is: which way?

Wish them luck. They’re going to need it. 

LINKS:     Goodreads     |      Amazon      |    Book Depository

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Feb. 23rd: An Unexpected Earl by Anna Harrington

Series: Lords of the Armory – Book 2

Page Length: 384

Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca

Synopsis: Twelve years ago, Brandon Pearce, former brigadier and now Earl West, had to give up the girl he loved, Amelia Howard. Now Teddy is a grown woman with a past she desperately needs to keep hidden in order to save her brother Frederick’s reputation. In an effort to avoid blackmail, Frederick needs to place a list of gentlemen into government positions, and for that, he’ll need an ally in Parliament―Pearce.

Pearce has been investigating a criminal group he believes is behind the government appointments. Pearce must pretend that he sides with the blackmailer, even though it means breaking Teddy’s heart. But Pearce is willing to do anything he can for a second chance with her, even when he discovers she’s been keeping secrets of her own.

LINKS:     Goodreads    |       Amazon     |     Book Depository

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Are you looking forward to any of these? Which books are you most anticipating? Comment below!!